Ageless Birthday Episode

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A staple in most classic sitcoms and animated television programs is the "ageless birthday episode". This is an episode that centers on a specific character's birthday but never mentions the character's new age. If this character's actual age is part of the show's status quo, then you can expect their age to remain the same even after the "birthday episode". The inevitable numerous guests and fancy decorations at their birthday party raise even more curiosity as to what this character's age is, as such a party would only seem to make sense during a monumental birthday like their 21st or 40th.

This trope occurs most often in children's cartoons and more kid-friendly sitcoms, and goes hand-in-hand with Not Allowed to Grow Up. This is most likely because, well, kids love birthday parties, and they associate it more with parties, fun and presents than turning a year older. This allows them to use it even though characters can't show actual signs of aging. However, it also frequently appears in more adult works, where it is decidedly less justified. If the only evidence of the character's age is what he says in casual conversation, it could be due to the character lying about his or her age, simply because an older age (the character's true age) is seen as less desirable than a younger one.

Examples:

The anniversary of Ash and Pikachu's meeting is celebrated at least twice, but Ash is still 10. Heck, according to how many episodes there are, if Ash had a new adventure every single day (and certain episodes take place over multiple days already), there is no possible way he could still be 10 years old. Yet he is still canonically 10 years old.

Meowth pokes fun at this in the second episode of Diamond & Pearl when, at least in the dub, he claims that Team Rocket have been chasing after Ash's Pikachu longer than Dawn's been alive - which really was the case, the episode first airing about nine and a half years since their introduction - despite her canonically being 10 years old, just like Ash is supposed to be.

An episode of XY reveals Jessie recently had a birthday, however we still never learn her age (though early material heavily implied she's around 25). Considering Ash, it's probable Jessie hasn't aged either.

None shown on screen, but when One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda was asked about the possibility of the characters aging, he said that they do have birthdays, they just turn the same age every year ("Lucky bastards.") They all do end up aging after a two year time skip.

Calvin and Hobbes had an arc were Susie invites Calvin to her birthday party. Her age isn't mentioned, but they all appear to be perpetually 6.

The Duck Who Never Was plays with this. It was first published in 1994 (the sixtieth anniversaty of Donald's debut), and should logically be the celebration of Donald's birthday. However, Don Rosa, the creator the editors hired for the job, has a rather narrow view of continuity, where he doesn't want to write anything taking place after 1967. One character does state Donald is sixty, but this character is near-sighted and has been reading Donald's filled-in form upside down. note Speaking of the form, in the panel where we first see it, Donald wrote "Month: 09; Day: 06; Year: 19__", as he was in the middle of filling it out. In the panel where the employer misreads the form, we only see the day and the month, which are rendered as 90 and 60 respectively. Therefore, it is possible that Donald is 60 as was intended, but in Don Rosa's personal continuity, he can pretend it was just a mistake of the near-sighted character.

Later, when the employer arrives at Donald's birthday party to give him his job back, mentioning that Donald is (allegedly) 60, Gladstone Gander then exclaims, "Better stick some extra candles on the cake!" Of course, we've never seen the cake beforehand, and by the time we see it, the extra candles are already there.

Averted in an issue of Immortal Iron Fist, where Danny Rand explicitly turns 33. The issue becomes, no Iron Fist has ever seen 34...

Initially averted in Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog when one issue has him celebrating his 15th birthday. When another issue has him celebrating a birthday, Rotor questions if he should be 16 or 17 (thanks to adventures in space, Mobius went through a year of changes while Sonic didn't age at all). Sonic replies he should be 16 forever and ever, thus invoking this trope should another birthday issue come up.

Averted in Scott Pilgrim where Scott turns 24 at the beginning of Volume 4. Other characters' ages are noted, especially Knives Chau (17 Years Old), who turns 18 in the gap between Volumes 5 and 6.

Dennis the Menace (US) celebrates his birthday every year on March 14th (creator, Hank Ketcham's actual birthday), but he still remains five years old.

Film

Spider-Man 2 has Peter's family throwing him a birthday party with no mention of his age. But since Aunt May referred to Uncle Ben's murder being two years ago we can infer that Peter turned 19 or 20.

There is a Just William story entitled William's Birthday. As William is always eleven and a half years old, it is not made clear whether this is his eleventh or twelfth birthday. He is eleven and a half in all the stories before and after this one.

By contrast, while the fourth Jennings book, Jennings and Darbishire, features a birthday with no age mentioned, it is clearly Jennings' eleventh, because he was mentioned as "nearly eleven" in the previous book.

In the Rainbow Magic series, books with birthdays in them never reveal how old the birthday person is.

Live Action TV

Our Miss Brooks has the episode The Birthday Bag. Mr. Conklin asks Miss Brooks how old she is. Miss Brooks quickly dodges the question by starting a chorus of Happy Birthday.

Family Matters had several episodes devoted to Carl's birthday with no mention of his age.

Friends had several ageless birthday episodes for Rachel. Averted, though, in the episode where Rachel has her 30th.

Saved by the Bell inexcusably did this with Screech's and Zack's birthdays. Since they're both in high school, there was no reason for them to not at least provide their new ages (which would've been anywhere from 15 to 18).

The series did this in the "Guys vs. Girls" episode for Danny. Once again, inexcusable, since he was a "teenager" at the time.

There was another episode that had an ageless birthday episode for Mr. Ernst.

Several episodes of The Office have centered on birthdays for various cast members, including Meredith, Michael, and one where multiple birthdays are mashed together. Specific ages are never an issue, although this can be justified as the characters simply avoiding the subject on purpose.

Oobi has an episode where Uma celebrates her birthday. Her new age is never mentioned, but according to official show descriptions from both before and after the episode aired, she's three.

In Power Rangers whenever a Ranger celebrates a birthday, no age will be mentioned. The most notable being the first time it happened in the first season in "Happy Birthday Zack" perhaps for the best since the characters, originally meant to be high school juniors or seniors at the time, were retconned into being freshman due to staying in high school for four seasons. Giving out an actual age would have ended in a continuity error.

Lampshaded in Animal Crossing. When the villagers have their birthdays, they don't mention how old they're turning. But if you chat up a Snooty or Uchi villager enough, your character will actually ask them that (well, at least the wayHeroic Mimesdo), and they'll respond by saying it's rude to ask a lady her age. It's also lampshaded when a party guest mentions they don't actually know what birthday they're celebrating.

In Harvest Moon games birthdays will pass but no one ever ages, except occasionally for child characters and even then only on certain events.

The short "Gifts, Goofs, Galore" features Barbie and her friends celebrating her birthday. However, the friends realize that since Barbie never ages, as dolls never do, they don't know how old she is. Ken eventually asks her, but the vacuum drowns out her answer.

"Little Bad Dress" takes place at Raquelle's half-birthday party, but the cartoon never specifies which half-birthday it is. (The cake only has four candles, but Raquelle looks older than four.)

The same series averts this in "Happy Birthday Chelsea", in which Barbie's youngest sister, Chelsea, explicitly turns six years old.

Achewood has celebrated Philippe's fifth birthday a few times, with the characters explicitly mentioning his age. Of course, what you have to understand is that when they say Philippe is five, they really do mean that Philippe is five.

Played completely straight with the episode "Angelica's Birthday". In an earlier episode ("The Seven Voyages of Cynthia"), Angelica mentions having gotten her doll Cynthia as a present for her 3rd birthday, so logically the birthday we see her celebrate should be her 4th, but in a later episode ("Pickles vs. Pickles"), her parents say that she's still 3 years old.

Averted, though, in the aptly titled "Tommy's First Birthday." This was the series' 1st episode, so there wasn't any status quo to disrupt yet.

Played similarly straight in the Nickelodeon Doug episode "Doug's Birthday Present." To the extent that the Disney series opened with an episode about him turning 12. Since he was 11½ when he moved to Bluffington and lived there during the Nickelodeon birthday episode, the only logical conclusion one could draw is that he had two 12th birthdays! It's even stranger. The aforementioned "Doug's Birthday Present" is a Season 4 episode — the Season 2 episode "Doug vs. the Klotzoid Zombies" ends with Doug and his friends celebrating the 1st anniversary of him moving to Bluffington, and yet Season 3's "Doug's New Teacher" still says he's 11½!

The episode "Damien" does this with Cartman's birthday (although we can probably assume that he turned 9 in this episode, as the show subtly suggests that he's a little older than the three other SP boys).

Averted in "You're Getting Old", which opened with Stan celebrating his 10th birthday.

The Flintstones had several such episodes for Fred (such as "The Swimming Pool"). Averted in the episode where Pebbles has her first birthday.

Lampshaded in an episode of The Magic School Bus. It's Ms. Frizzle's birthday and the class goes to a bakery. During the And Knowing Is Half the Battle segment at the end, a kid goes there and tells the baker shown in the episode that one critical piece of information was missing from the show: They never said how old Ms. Frizzle is.

Lisa has had a number of these but remains 8. Averted in the episode where the mental patient who thinks he's Michael Jackson shows up, which is when she turns 8, the age she will remain for the rest of the series.

Averted in the episode where Bart has his tenth birthday, and he's been ten ever since. Of course, this happened extremely early in the show's run, so it wasn't a problem back then.

In the episode "SpongeBob Meets the Strangler", SpongeBob celebrates his birthday among several other parties he planned on the same day. Even though he has a revealed birthday, his age isn't revealed.

Another epsiode ("Pet Sitter Pat") when Spongebob was invited to his grandmother's birthday. All was said about her age was "turning...even older".

Yogi Bear had two such episodes: one for Ranger Smith and one for Yogi.

The New Yogi Bear Show had another one for Yogi.

Phineas and Ferb: the episode "Phineas' Birthday Clip-O-Rama" centers around Phineas' birthday, but his age remains a mystery (all we know is that despite aging a year he is still "younger than 15").

In Teen Titans, the main arc of season 4 sets off with Raven's birthday. We're never actually told how old Raven is, but most of fandom assumes it was her 16th birthday because of the Dangerous 16th Birthday trope.

Subverted with Peppa Pig, where with the mom's birthday, Daddy Pig whispers it to Peppa, who comments that it's old. Daddy Pig just puts a couple of candles on the cake.

Played with in Magic Adventures of Mumfie: Scarecrow celebrates his first birthday in "Scarecrow's Birthday Surprise" (Mumfie states this in a later episode), and The Queen of Night has an ageless one in "It Won't Be Alright On The Night".

One episode is about Blue's birthday. It's presumably her first birthday but it's never referred to as such and she is still called a "puppy" in future episodes.

Averted in an episode about Mailbox's birthday, in which Steve says he's turning ten.

The Valentines Day special of Johnny Bravo doubles as a Birthday Episode, and Johnny claims he's officially "20-something-else, which is a whole lot different than being 20-something."

In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Mindy's Moon Bounce House", Mindy has her birthday, but it was never specified what age she became.

PJ Masks: The episode "Catboy and the Great Birthday Cake Rescue" focusses on Greg's birthday, but his age is never mentioned. According to the character's bio, they are 6 years old, but it's unknown if Greg was 5 before and turned 6 now, or if he was 6 before and thus should be 7 now (and by extend, the others as well since he's stated to be the youngest).

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